Your Future in Scenes and Episodes
by Loki's Captain
Summary: *Draft, not ready for reading. Is only being uploaded now so it isn't deleted from my drafts.* Another, pre series Winchesters ( Bobby) watch the series.


**[A/N: This is only getting uploaded now because otherwise it'll get deleted from my drafts. I still need to edit this before it's readworthy.]**

 **Seeing your future in scenes and episodes**

 **A Supernatural fan fiction**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Supernatural or any of the fan fictions and transcripts I have used in this work. All rights go to their owners, and to the CW for Supernatural. This is only for entertainment purposes and I own nothing except for the little bits I write myself.**

 **A/N: So this I obviously pre-series, Dean is 19 and Sam is 14, nearing 15. Basically, in this fix the gang are going to be watching Supernatural, and a few fanfics, but in a completely random order. Let's see how much I can confuse them, you, and myself. Characters will be added as we go but I'll try and help you with that as we go. Enjoy!**

* * *

John, Sam, and Dean, for once, were not staying in a motel. For once, they weren't staying somewhere with grimy accommodation. For once the Winchesters were staying in a house, an actual house. That didn't mean they were living there legally though.

Dean and John had just finished a case in some nearby town when they had stumbled upon a few houses that were just waiting to be lived in. Two story, three bedrooms, completely furnished, yet for some reason were uninhabited. Sam couldn't remember exactly why, but it meant they could stay here without being disturbed.

They were expecting Bobby to arrive any minute; Sam hadn't seen him in a couple months, he was only coming over to fix some problem with the Impala though.

Sam was alerted of the arrival when he heard the rumble of an engine outside, followed by the door opening and some firm clapping on the back by either Dean or John, most likely John.

Moments later the other three walked into the living room, where Sam was currently poking his nose around the room. The fourteen year old came to the conclusion it wasn't all that interesting a room.

"Good to see ya son." Bobby said, coming over to give the youngest Winchester a hug, which he returned.

"You too Bobby." Sam said truthfully. Dean jumped onto the sofa and made himself comfortable as John walked further into the room.

"So, what's the problem with the Impala?" Bobby asked, turning his attention to their father.

"Don't know, I couldn't find anything wrong with her when I checked but she won't start." John's rough voice replied. His throat was still healing after some serious strangling in the previous hunt, a demon. A demon was a big job, and also the reason Sam hadn't been allowed to help this time round. Actually John didn't let Sam join in on many hunts, because Sam was 'still to young' and he 'wasn't trained properly' yet. Of course Dean didn't argue with his father's logic, it didn't matter that his brother had been helping out on hunts at Sam's age. But no, Sam was never good enough, he always got something wrong; in all reality it was just his father being particularly picky, everyone knew Dean was the favourite son and not himself.

"Dean, why don't you go show Bobby?" John suggested gruffly, and of course Dean, like the good son he was, obeyed without conplaint. Sam signed internally, he would never be able to trust his Dad that much, never be able to just _obey._ It wasn't in Sam, he was no soldier. In the end that always meant he would disappoint his father. Oh well, a loss would be a loss, no use mourning it.

John was in the kitchen by now, grabbing a beer, even though it was only four in the afternoon. Deciding there was nothing for him to do in here, Sam was about to head up to what had been deemed his bedroom - he had a room to himself! A room with a queen sized bed! - when he heard Dean shout in obvious surprise outside.

"Ow! What the hell?" Dean asked as he sat sprawled on the ground rubbing his head.

"Dean?" Sam asked, walking outside, curious as to why his brother was sitting on the gravel driveway. Bobby was currently kneeling beside Dean, lookingnat some box on the floor. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah fine, just been hit by a box that fell out of the sky, no biggie." His brother replied sarcastically as he made to stand up, brushing dirt off of himself as he did.

"What's in that box?" John asked from behind Sam. The younger Winchester jumped slightly, not realising his father had been right behind him.

"Bring it in, let's take a look inside." Sam said, it was cold outside, winds coming down from the north making it a chilly spring day.

Once everyone was inside they opened the rather big box and saw it held a few things. The most noticeable was a TV, a _flat screen_ TV, one that looked rather expensive, **[A/N: I'm not exactly sure if flat screen TV's in the way we know them were around in 1998, or DVDs, but I'm assuming they were.] t** he second was a DVD player. The third item, or items, was a whole load of DVD cases, neatly ordered, face down so only the spines of the cases were visible.

"You said this just fell out of the sky?" Sam asked skeptically as he picked up a piece of paper from the box and handed it (reluctantly) to his father when he gestured for it.

"Yup, landed right on my head." Dean said as he half glared at the box, to his mind, anything that suspiciously fell out of the sky was probably evil.

"Supernatural..." Sam muttered to himself as he read the title of the first DVD on the left. He squinted as he looked at the cover, grabbing Dean's attention. "Is it just me or do these people look a little familiar to you?" Sam couldn't place it, but one of the two men on the cover reminded him of Dean.

"Supernatural, you say? Could it be anything to do with a hunt?" Dean offered up, and yes the people on the cover did look a little familiar.

"Could be, son." John said, contemplating Dean's theory, which made Dean smile proudly. Sam just rolled his eyes.

"How about we put the films on and find out?" Sam in turn suggested. Luckily everyone agreed without any argument, well if you didn't count Dean's grumble of distrust.

With the combined effort of three people and Dean's running commentary, it didn't take very long to get everything set up; soon everyone was seated around the room: Dean lying on the sofa, feet hanging off the edge, John and Bobby both in armchairs on either side, and Sam sitting cross legged on the floor even though he could have sat on the second three cushion sofa had he wished. This was definitely a larger living room than any of them were used to.

Once everyone was comfortable John read out the note that had been in the box. It was in a flowing font which was a little messy, but was still easy enough to decipher.

"In front of you are a set of films I-" John began before Sam cut across.

"Who's 'I'?" John sent a glare in his youngest son's direction.

"I was getting to that Sam." He said coldly, only a nudge away from starting an argument. "Films I think you'll all enjoy. Don't worry this won't mess with any timeline problems, I'm talking to you there Sammy. People might be dropping in to join you, just go with it. Signed, Gabester." None of the four found that the message made any sense in the slightest, all that Dean gathered was they were about to have a movie marathon and a bunch of plus ones could be arriving at some point.

"Sam, do you know this 'Gabester'?" John asked, pinning the fourteen year old under his gaze.

"No." Sam snapped at his father. "Just because someone mentions my name doesn't mean I'm going to be besties with them." He didn't like anyone (except Dean) calling him Sammy anyway.

"Just put the films on John." Bobby asked his friend, not wanting a full on argument to begin. After a moment John did and the screen showed a man with brownish-blonde hair and a lolly in his mouth.

"He's cute." Sam commented aloud without meaning to earning him a few surprised and wary stares off of the other three men. Sam blushed as he realised he'd voiced his thoughts, didn't change the fact the guys _was_ pretty cute though.

 **"Good to see you've put on the first film. Just a heads up, none of this is in chronological order, and a few of the films are** _ **not**_ **canon but I wanted to add them for the reaction factor nonetheless. Hopefully you read the letter, people will be dropping in." The trickster chuckled. "Literally. Loki out." The screen faded to black.**

"Wait, I thought he said his name was 'Gabester', he's now a pagan God?" Bobby half stated half asked. John shrugged his shoulders, he wasn't sure where any of this was headed.

Before anyone could reply, the movie started.

 **Lawrence, Kansas**

 **22 years ago**

Sam quickly worked out that would be the year 1976. What happened in Lawrence, Kansas, then? That was the area they used to live in before the incident that nobody spoke about.

 **Crickets chirp. A large deciduous tree with no leaves stands outside one of several suburban houses. The scene changes to a darkened nursery, sometime during the night. A woman, Mary Winchester, walks into view, wearing a white nightgown, carrying a small child, her son Dean.**

John visibly gasped as he saw his beloved wife on the screen with a four year old Dean. Dean and Bobby vaguely recognised the scene as that of pre-Mary's death though neither knew which night this was. Sam however, from John's gasp knew he should have a reaction to seeing this, but he hadn't made any connection between the few photos of his mother, a young Dean, and the scene on the screen.

 **"Come on, let's say good night to your brother." Mary says quietly to the child.**

 **Mary turns on the lights: it's a baby's nursery, Sam's, who is lying in his crib and looking over at his mother and Dean. Mary sets Dean down. Dean leans over the side of the crib and lightly kisses Sam on the forehead.**

 **"'Night, Sam." A young Dean says. Mary leans over Sam as well before saying:**

 **"Good night, love." Mary brushes Sam's hair back and kisses his forehead too.**

 **"Hey, Dean." A new voice says, it's a man. Dean turns. The man in the doorway wearing a USMC T-shirt is John.**

"Wait, is this us?" Sam asked in shock, the pieces finally clicking together. John nodded absently, eyes not leaving the image of Mary.

 **Dean rushes over to him.**

 **"Daddy!" Dean exclaims happily.**

 **"Hey, buddy." John scoops Dean up as his son reaches him. "So what do you think? You think Sammy's ready to toss around a football yet?" Dean shakes his head, laughing.**

 **"No, Daddy." John laughs.**

Sam looked at the scene with an unknown expression on his face. His father just _laughed,_ he looks so carefree, this is not the man he knew to be his dad.

 **"No." John repeats. Mary passes John and Dean on the way out of the room.**

 **"You got him?" Mary asks.**

 **"I got him." John hugs Dean closer as if confirming it.**

 **"Sweet dreams, Sam." John says.**

Well Sam's father has definitely never said _that_ to him or Dean. No, that couldn't be John Winchester they were all watching. Even if it was, how had someone filmed his nursery? Wait, wasn't this supposed to be twenty-two years ago? This couldn't have been any longer than fourteen years ago, Dean wasn't even _alive_ twenty-two years ago. Maybe he was over thinking this, perhaps this cute, yet obviously stalkerish, trickster had really lame math skills.

 **John carries Dean out of the room, flipping off the lights as he goes. Sam watches them go, gurgling, before trying to reach his toes.**

 **The baseball-themed mobile above Sam's crib begins to spin on its own while Sam watches. The transportation-themed clock on the wall ticks for a few moments before stopping. The moon-shaped nightlight flickers.**

 **The scene changes to the master bedroom a little later in the night. Lights flicker on a baby monitor sitting on a nightstand next to a photo of Mary and John. Strange noises come through the monitor. Mary, asleep in bed, stirs. She turns on the lamp on the nightstand.**

 **"John?" Mary says sleepily. She turns: she's alone. Mary gets out of bed and walks down the hall to Sam's nursery. A man, presumably John, is seen in silhouette standing over Sam's crib.**

"Well that's not creepy at all Dad." Dean commented, glancing briefly in his dad's direction. John was frowning now, he didn't remember this, he wouldn't stand over Sam's crib like that. This couldn't be him.

Bobby seemed to realise from John's increasingly pale face, that this must be from the night that Mary died. Why on earth would someone make them watch this? Some cruel trickster joke?

 **"John? Is he hungry?" John turns his head.**

 **"Shhh." The figure quietly replies.**

 **"All right." Mary says, still half asleep. She heads back down the hallway. The light by the stairs is flickering and catches her attention. Mary frowns and goes to tap at it until the light steadies a few moments later.**

"Something's not right here." Dean states the obvious.

 **"Hm." More flickering light is coming from downstairs: Mary investigates. A war movie is on TV and John has fallen asleep watching it. If John is here, MARY realizes, then the man upstairs is not her husband and is therefore an intruder and a danger. She frantically runs back upstairs.**

 **"Sammy! Sammy!" Mary shouts as she climbs the stairs**

 **Mary enters Sam's nursery and stops short.**

 **John startles awake when he hears a scream from upstairs.**

 **"Mary?" John scrambles out of the chair. "Mary!" He shouts. John too runs upstairs before brsting through the closed door of the nursery. "Mary."**

 **The room is quiet and appears empty except for Sam awake in his crib and John in the doorway. John glances around and pushes down the side of Sam's crib.**

 **"Hey, Sammy. You okay?" Something dark drips next to Sam. John touches it, curious. Two more drops land on the back of John's hand. It looks a lot like blood. John looks up. Mary is sprawled across the ceiling, the stomach of her nightgown red with blood, staring at John wide eyed and struggling to breathe. John collapses onto the floor, staring at Mary.**

"Hole shit!" Dean shouts, summing up the thoughts of his brother and Bobby too, both are staring at the screen in utter shock at the horrific sight. John however is frozen in place, he knows exactly what is going to happen next as every moment is branded into his very mind.

 **"No! Mary!" He shouts. Mary bursts into flame. The fire spreads over the ceiling. John stares, frozen. Sam wails. John, reminded he's not alone, gets up and scoops Sam out of his crib and rushes out of the room.**

 **Dean, who is awake and has come to investigate, is in the hallway when his dad rushed out.**

 **"Daddy!" John shoves Sam at Dean.**

 **"Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!" Dean turns and runs down the stairs. John turns back to the nursery hoping he can somehow save his wife.**

 **"Mary!" John shouts once more. The entire room is on fire. Mary herself can barely be seen as the flames continue to engulf her. "No!"**

 **Dean runs outside, holding Sam.**

 **"It's okay, Sammy." A young Dean comforts the crying baby. Dean turns to look up at Sam's window, which is lit gold by the flames within.**

 **John sprints outside, scoops up Dean and Sam, and carries them both away.**

 **"I gotcha." John says moments before fire explodes out of Sam's nursery window.**

"You carried me out?" Sam asks, surprised, though he should expect it by now.

"Of course I did Sammy." Dean says, almost proudly. He's the big brother, it's his job to look after Sam.

Before now, Sam has never seen what happened that night, most of what he knows comes from the news article written about it because Dean and his father will never talk about that night.

 **The scene skips to later that night, when the Lawrence fire department has arrived. A firefighter gets out of a fire truck and takes over at the gauges for another of his coworkers.**

 **"I got it. You go hold the line up." The firefighter says. The second firefighter goes to the back of the truck and takes a hose from a third firefighter. That firefighter takes the hose towards the house where a fourth man is spraying water through wha was Sam's nursery window. A paramedic opens the back of an ambulance and a police officer waves some neighbors who hae gathered around the scene back.**

 **"Stay back. You have to stay back." The officer shouts towards the curious civilians.**

 **Across the street from the house, John and Dean sit on the hood of the Impala, John holding Sam. He looks up at the remnants of the fire, a look of determination in his eyes.**

There is an almost relieved sigh is breathed as the scene changes. When seen like that in a movie it doesn't convey just how horrific it was but still, it's like watching the beginning of a horror film. Surprisingly, almost ironically, Dam has never liked horror films.

No one misses that look in John's eye, everyone knows it's the spark that started John on his path for revenge.

 **Stanford University**

 **Present Day**

 **31 Oct 2005.**

"Present day?" Dean repeats the words from the screen.

"This is obviously a film or television series set in the future Dean." Sam replies as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Still finding it creepy that this is about us though." Sam comments, earning nods of agreement from the other people on the room

"Anyway, let's see what the deal with Stanford is. Maybe a case?" Dean suggests.

 **"Gasoline" by Ginger begins to play.**

 **The scene is in the bedroom of an apartment.**

 **"Sam!" A young woman, Jessica, comes around a corner; she is wearing a sexy-nurse costume and adjusting her hat. The photo of Mary and John from earlier is sat on the dresser.**

"Wait, wait! Pause!" Dean orders, though he is the one who pauses the film. "How old will that make us?"

"You'll be twenty-six Dean, I'll be twenty-four." Sam replied almost immediately.

"Fifty-one." John said, mind still a little absent.

"Fifty-five. Darn, don't I feel old." Dean's a little surprised that they can all work that out so quickly, is this a skill he's forgotten to learn or something?

"Fair enough, but dude, that woman is _hot._ " Dean emphasises, maybe it's a mutual friend of theirs? He can't think of how else this person might be associated with Sammy, his brother is so awkward around girls.

 **"Get a move on, would you?" Jess shouts over her shoulder. "We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago." Jess walks off. "Sam! You coming or what?" Jess asks.**

 **A young man pokes his head around the corner; this is Sam. He's wearing jeans and three shirts, not a costume.**

"I get it now. Dean, these people on the cover are us!" Sam says shocked. Dean's shocked too because his brother is a freaking giant! Not to mention his hair is pretty long, it's kind of girly.

"Sam, seriously, tell me how you know this girl, now." Dean tells his brother, who in turn rolls his eyes.

"Dean I don't know her yet." Sam reminds his older sibling.

 **"Do I have to?"**

 **"Yes!" Jess says, amused yet frustrated. "It'll be fun." She reassures. Sam comes into the room. "And where's your costume?" Sam laughs and ducks his head.**

"Sammy, you had one bad taste in music." Dean scrunches his nose in disgust, as he does with anything that isn't rock. He's still trying to work out the mystery woman though.

 **"You know how I feel about Halloween." Sam says before the scene changed to a bar in the evening. Classic's "What Cha Gonna Do" begins to play.**

 **The bar is decorated for Halloween, there's a gargoyle with cobwebs and a baseball hat that says "GET NAKED" amongst other things. Shots are being poured, drink are being drank, and everyone is in costume. Except Sam.**

 **Jess raises a glass as a young man in a ghoul costume, Luis, comes up to the table where Sam and Jess are.**

 **"So here's to Sam and his awesome LSAT victory." Jessica cheers.**

 **"All right, all right, it's not that big a deal." Jess, Sam, and Luis clink glasses.**

 **"Yeah, he acts all humble. But he scored a one seventy-four." Jessica tells Luis proudly.**

Dean doesn't know much about how all these school things work, but he knows Sam is smart so he guesses one seventy-four is good. Both himself and John are confused about how he's even got time for this, in between hunting with them.

Sam has a theory, as does Bobby, but neither of the two voice them.

 **Luis drinks his shot and so does Sam.**

 **"Is that good?" Luis asks.**

 **"Scary good." Jess drinks.**

 **"So there you go. You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want!" Luis says happily as he sits next to Sam.**

 **"Actually, I got an interview here. Monday. If it goes okay I think I got a shot at a full ride next year." Sam says modestly.**

 **"Hey. It's gonna go great." Jessica reassures the Winchester.**

 **"It better."**

 **"How does it feel to be the golden boy of your family?"**

 **"Ah, they don't know."**

"Why the hell not! Come on Sammy you can't keep us out of the loop!" Dean exclaims, genuinely offended that future him hasn't been told. Not that really matters since Sam obviously won't be going to university, there's no way he could fit that into a hunter's schedule.

 **"Oh, no, I would be gloating! Why not?"**

 **"Because we're not exactly the Bradys."**

 **"And I'm not exactly the Huxtables. More shots?" Luis asks already on his was to get more. Jess and Sam speak in unison.**

 **"No. No."**

 **"No." Sam repeats. Luis goes up to the bar anyway.**

 **"No, seriously. I'm proud of you. And you're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it." Jess tells Sam seriously.**

 **"What would I do without you?" Sam asks with a smile/**

 **"Crash and burn." She replied lightheartedly and pulls Sam in for a kiss.**

"Well you're going full tongue there aren't ya Sammy." Dean says, making Sam blush in embarrassment. What he really would like to know is how he managed to get a girl like _that,_ she was a ten.

 **Sam and Jess lie in bed sometime later that night, asleep back to back. Jess shifts position.**

 **A sound outside the room, like a window openingnis heard. Sam opens his eyes. He leaves the bedroom and looks around the apartment.**

 **A window is open; though earlier it had been closed. Footsteps. A man walks past the strings of beads at the far end of the hall. Sam moves to another part of the apartment and waits. The man enters the room. Sam lunges forward and grabs the man at the shoulder. The man knocks Sam's arm away and aims a strike at Sam, who ducks. The man grabs Sam's arm, swings him around, and shoves him back. Sam kicks and is blocked, then pushed back into another room. If the man hadn't seen Sam's face before, he sees it now; Sam gets his first brief glimpse of the man. The man elbows Sam in the face; Sam kicks at his head. The man ducks and swings and Sam blocks. The man knocks Sam down and pins him to the floor, one hand at Sam's neck and the other holding Sam's wrist.**

"Awesome fighting skills like that? Definitely me." Dean comes to a decision that he is the mystery man.

 **"Whoa, easy, tiger." Sam breathes hard.**

 **"Dean?" Dean laughs.**

"Told you so!" Nobody graced Dean with a reply.

 **"You scared the crap out of me!" Sam exclaims.**

 **"That's 'cause you're out of practice." Dean replies, looking down at his younger brother.**

"Why would you be out of practise?" Dean asks, confused. A hunter doesn't have time to become out of practise.

John has fixed Sam with a disappointed glare, fighting skills like _that_ were why he didn't let his youngest join him in hunts.

 **Sam grabs Dean's hand and yanks, slamming his heel into Dean's back and flips their positions.**

 **"Or not." Dean adds.**

Sam looks smugly back at his father. Ha, he just beat Dean!

 **Sam taps Dean twice where Sam is holding him.**

 **"Get off of me." Dean tells Sam who rolls to his feet and pulls Dean up with him.**

 **"What the hell are you doing here?"**

 **"Well, I was looking for a beer." Dean replies in his usual casual manner.**

 **Dean puts his hands on Sam's shoulders, shakes once, and lets go.**

 **"What the hell are you doing here?" Sam repeats his question.**

 **"Okay. All right. We gotta talk." Dean finally admits.**

 **"Uh, the phone?" Sam offers up a solution.**

"Is there some reason you don't want me in your apartment Sammy?"

"Dean I don't know, it _hasn't happened yet._ " Sam reminds his brother again.

 **"If I'd'a called, would you have picked up?" The older Winchester asks pointedly.**

 **Jess turns the light on. She is wearing very short shorts and a cropped Smurfs shirt.**

 **"Sam?" She asks in obvious confusion. Sam and Dean turn their heads in unison.**

 **"Jess. Hey. Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica." Sam introduces as he remembers they don't know each other. Dean looks at her appreciatively.**

 **"Wait, your brother Dean?" There's a surprised expression on Jessica's face. Jess smiles. Sam nods. Dean grins at her and moves closer.**

 **"Oh, I love the Smurfs. You know, I gotta tell you. You are completely out of my brother's league." It's obvious where Dean's eyes are staring.**

 **"Just let me put something on." Jess turns to go. Dean's voice stops her.**

 **"No, no, no, I wouldn't dream of it. Seriously."**

"Dean stop hitting on my girlfriend! Sam all but shouts.

" _Future_ girlfriend Sammy, she isn't yours yet." He throws his teenage brother a cocky grin.

Sam sees why he would like a girl like Jess, she's pretty that much is obvious, but it's easy enough to tell there's a brain to match the beauty too.

"Boys, stop arguing." John orders them. Immediately Dean shuts his mouth, Sam throws a glare his father's way.

"We were just messing dad."

 **Dean goes back over to Sam without taking his eyes off Jess. Sam watches him, his expression stony.**

 **"Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here, talk about some private family business. But, uh, nice meeting you." Dean stumbles over his words.**

 **"No." Sam says decidedly as he goes over to Jess and puts an arm around her. "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."**

 **"Okay." Dean turns to look at them both straight on. "Um. Dad hasn't been home in a few days."**

 **"So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later."**

For once John has to agree with his son, a few days? He's gone that long all the time.

 **Dean ducks his head and looks back up.**

 **"Dad's on a hunting trip. And he hasn't been home in a few days."**

 **Sam's expression doesn't change after hearing the new information. Jess glances up at him.**

 **"Jess, excuse us. We have to go outside."**

 **Sam and Dean head down the stairwell, outside. Sam has put on jeans and a hoodie.**

 **"I mean, come on. You can't just break in, middle of the night, and expect me to hit the road with you."**

 **"You're not hearing me, Sammy. Dad's missing. I need you to help me find him."**

 **"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? Or the Devil's Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too. He's always missing, and he's always fine."**

Again John agrees with his youngest. Dean's probably worrying irrationally which isn't like him.

 **Dean stops and turns around. Sam stops too.**

 **"Not for this long. Now are you gonna come with me or not?"**

 **"I'm not." Sam says seemingly surprising Dean.**

 **"Why not?" He counters/**

 **"I swore I was done hunting. For good."**

"You did _what_ boy!" John shouted at Sam, making the teenager flinch. Dean too, was just as surprised. Bobby on the other hand was a little harder to decipher, there was a hint of disappointment but the hunter wasn't really surprised, Sam wasn't into hunting the way his family was; there was even a little look of pride in Bobby's eyes, it wasn't easy to get out of the life, and to then get such a good future set up for yourself? Virtually impossible for a born and bred hunter.

"Do I need to keep reminding people I haven't done _any_ of this! This is the future, a possible future at that!" It's hardly fair for everyone to start blaming him now, over seven years in advance.

"I have raised you to be a hunter and you'd rather go to college?!" John is shouting now, the inevitable argument finally happening.

Sam contemplates the question. It's not that he doesn't like hunting, because it's not all that bad really, but there's so much _more_ out there he could be doing.

"Yes _John._ I would rather get an education than kill things for the rest of my life!" Sam shoots up from where he's sitting, meeting his father's gaze and refusing to back down. He has the right to education just like everyone else.

"What about saving people? We don't just do this for fun, we have a _responsibility._ "

"Oh and why do _we_ have to bear this responsibility? Out of the whole world. Why do _I_ need to be a hunter? You won't even bring me with you on hunts, so I'm saving all of... No lives!" The two Winchesters slowly get closer to each other. Dean watches on, annoyed that Sam's going against his father. Again. All they do is argue with each other, when they do it's like they completely forget he's in the room too. Just like now. Bobby too watches on without intervening, they need to get this out of their systems, as much as he hates to admit it.

"Is this about hunting? About your _pride?_ I'm hardly going to drag you along with me while you're still a liability am I? I'm not your babysitter Sam, I shouldn't have to constantly look after you." Bobby refraine from pointing out that John is Sam's father which means, yeah, the idjit kind of _does_ have to look after Sam. Then again, John has never been all that much of a father has he? More like a drill sargeant. Which is a sad, a younger John would have made the perfect father.

"Maybe it is! I'm nearly fifteen I can handle a quick salt 'n burn at least! You started bringing Dean along when he was thirteen, I hardly think you're being fair."

"When Dean was thirteen he could fight, he could shoot, and he could protect himself. Can you do that Sam?"

"Yes! That's what I'm trying to tell you, you idiot!" Sam is now standing inches away from John, who is only a fraction shorter than the Winchester, who has had yet another growth spurt.

John doesn't say anything, just continues to glare his youngest son down as the DVD stays paused waiting for them to quieten down.

When Bobby sees their anger has passed its peak he interrupts.

"Sir down ya idgits, you've made your points. John, Sam can handle himself just _fine,_ he needs practise on the field." John returnes to where he was sitting a few moments ago, not sure whether he won the argument or not but deciding Bobby has a point. By now Dean has sat up, one knee hugged to his chest, the other is stretched out in front of him, leaving half the couch free. Sam passes the empty space and instead moves to sit in the middle of the empty couch, furthest away from John but still with a good view of the television.

 **"Come on. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad." Dean says as he starts down more stairs. Sam follows.**

 **"Yeah? When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45." Dean stops at the door to the outside.**

 **"Well, what was he supposed to do?"**

 **"I was nine years old! He was supposed to say, don't be afraid of the dark." Sam exclaims.**

Bobby send a disappointed look John's way. Sometimes that man just has no sense.

 **"Don't be afraid of the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark. You know what's out there." Dean looks up towards Sam incredulously.**

 **"Yeah, I know, but still. The way we grew up, after Mom was killed, and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her." Dean glances outside.**

 **"But we still haven't found the damn thing. So we kill everything we can find."**

Silently John despairs over the fact that even seven years in the future he still hasn't found the demon that killed Mary. At this rate they're never going to catch a glimpse of this demon again.

 **"We save a lot of people doing it, too." A pause.**

 **"You think Mom would have wanted this for us?" Sam says, making a low blow. Dean rolls his eyes and slams the door open.**

 **There's a short flight of stairs from the door to the dark parking lot. Dean and Sam climb down it.**

 **"The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."**

Sam has always had a flare for the dramatic, one Dean shall continue to roll his eyes at.

 **They cross the parking lot to the Impala.**

 **"So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?" Dean asks skeptically.**

 **"No. Not normal. Safe." His younger brother states confidently.**

 **"And that's why you ran away." Dean looks away.**

"You ran away?" Dean says quietly, as if he can't quite believe his brother would ever do that. Because Sam wouldn't and Sam won't.

 **"I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."**

John doesn't even react at hearing these words he's apparently going to say, though he doubts he would be that harsh. Yes he argues with his son but he loves his boys, why would he ever tell them to stay gone?

 **"Yeah, well, Dad's in real trouble right now. If he's not dead already. I can feel it." Sam is silent. "I can't do this alone."**

 **"Yes you can." Dean looks down.**

 **"Yeah, well, I don't want to." Dean admits to Sam, who sighs and looks down, thinking, then lifts his head back up.**

 **"What was he hunting?" Dean opens the trunk of the Impala, then the compartment within it that has the stash of hunters equipment, an arsenal if you will. He props the compartment open with a shotgun and digs through the clutter.**

 **"All right, let's see, where the hell did I put that thing?" Dean mutters to himself.**

 **"So when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?"**

 **"I was working my own gig. This, uh, voodoo thing, down in New Orleans."**

 **"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Dean looks over at Sam.**

 **"** **I'm twenty-six, dude."**

"Yeah dude, twenty-six, I'll be doing my own hunts by then, what d'you think I am, a wimp?" Dean says fairly sure that, yes, he will be allowed on his own hunts by then. Either way he does shoot a side glance towards his father.

 **Dean pulls some papers out of a folder.**

 **"All right, here we go. So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy." Dean hands one of the papers to Sam. "They found his car, but he vanished. Completely MIA."**

 **The paper is a printout of an article from the Jericho Herald, headlined "Centennial Highway Disappearance" and dated September 19th 2005; it has a man's picture, captioned "Andrew Carey MISSING". Sam skims it and glances up.**

 **"So maybe he was kidnapped."**

 **"Yeah. Well, here's another one in April." Dean tosses down another article for each date he mentions. "Another one in December 'oh-four, 'oh-three, 'ninety-eight, 'ninety-two, ten of them over the past twenty years." Dean takes the article back from Sam and picks up the rest of the stack, putting them back in the folder he retrieved them from. "All men, all the same five-mile stretch of road." Dean pulls a bag out of another part of the trunk. "It started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around. That was about three weeks ago. I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough." Dean grabs a handheld tape recorder. "Then I get this voicemail yesterday." He presses play. The recording is staticky and the signal is broken up.**

 _ **Dean...something big is starting to happen...I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may... Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger.**_ **Dean presses stop.**

 **"You know there's EVP on that?" Sam informs his brother.**

 **"Not bad, Sammy. Kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Sam shakes his head at his brother's comment. "All right. I slowed the message down, I ran it through a gold wave, took out the hiss, and this is what I got." He presses play again and a woman's voice is heard.**

 _ **I can never go home...**_ **Dean presses stop again.**

 **"Never go home." Sam repeats to himself.**

"Definitely a case there." Bobby says out loud, sounds like a spirit. He's surprised one spirit would be enough to catch John out.

"Yup. Spirit." Sam agrees.

 **Dean drops the recorder, puts down the shotgun, stands straight, shuts the trunk, then leans on it.**

 **"You know, in almost two years I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing."**

"Two years? God Sam, how long you planning on abandoning us for. Even if you don't hunt you shouldn't leave your family like that." Dean says. Sam doesn't want to remind him that _this has not happened yet_ or that, according to this, future him isn't welcome.

 **Sam looks away and sighs, then looks back.**

 **"All right. I'll go. I'll help you find him." Dean nods. "But I have to get back first thing Monday. Just wait here." Sam turns to go back to the apartment. He turns back when Dean speaks.**

 **"What's first thing Monday?"**

 **"I have this...I have an interview." Sam says almost hesitantly.**

 **"What, a job interview? Skip it."**

Sam frowns at how easily Dean dismisses important things like this. You're hardly going to get a job if you don't turn up to the interview.

 **"It's a law school interview, and it's my whole future on a plate." Sam replies dead serious.**

 **"Law school?" Dean smirks.**

 **"So we got a deal or not?" Dean says nothing.**

 **Sam runs back ro his room and packs a duffel bag. He pulls out a large hook-shaped knife and slides it inside.**

"You don't hunt but you keep knives like _that_ around?" Bobby asks, not quite sure what to think about the curved blade that's stashed in a shared room. If anyone found that it would not reflect well on Sam.

 **Jess comes into the room.**

 **"Wait, you're taking off?" Sam looks up. "Is this about your dad? Is he all right?"**

 **"Yeah. You know, just a little family drama." Sam goes over to the dresser and turns on the lamp.**

 **"Your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip." Jess sits on the bed. Sam rummages in one of the drawers and comes out with a couple shirts, which go in the duffel.**

 **"Oh, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin, he's probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. I'm just going to go bring him back."**

 **"What about the interview?" Jess asks.**

 **"I'll make the interview. This is only for a couple days." Sam reassures his girlfriend. He goes around the bed. Jess gets up and follows.**

 **"Sam, I mean, please." Sam stops and turns. "Just stop for a second. You sure you're okay?" Sam laughs a little.**

 **"I'm fine."**

 **"It's just...you won't even talk about your family. And now you're taking off in the middle of the night to spend a weekend with them? And with Monday coming up, which is kind of a huge deal."**

"You ashamed about us or something?" John asks, Sam doesn't reply, he's not going to remind everyone for the hundredth time that none of this is present him and he isn't doing any of this now, though he does agree with a lot of it.

 **"Hey. Everything's going to be okay. I will be back in time, I promise." He kisses her on the cheek and leaves.**

 **"At least tell me where you're going." Jessica adds but Sam's already gone.**

 **Jericho, California**

 **Centennial Highway**

 **The Eagles of Death Metal's "Speaking in Tongues" plays. A young man, Troy, is driving down the highway, talking on his cell phone. [A/N: We're not going to marvel over the fact that wow! Cell phones! When did they even become a thing anyway? A few years later? I'm not sure.]**

 **Troy is speaking on his phone.**

 **"Amy, I can't come over tonight. Because I've got work in the morning, that's why. ...Yeah, okay, I miss it and my dad's gonna have my ass."**

 **His radio begins playing up. Troy looks over and sees a woman in a white dress on the side of the road. She's moving as though dancing; she flickers, and for a moment she's gone.**

 **"Hey, ah, Amy, let me call you back?" Troy end the call.**

 **Troy tries several times to turn off the radio, which is flickering. Nothing happens.**

"Yup, definitely spirit activity. Dude she's _flickering_ how many more clues do you need?" Dean asked the on scree character. Such noobs.

 **Troy pulls up next to the woman, whose dress is torn in several places, and stops, leaning across the shotgun seat.**

 **"Car trouble or something?"**

 **A long pause.**

 **"Take me home?" The woman asks. Troy opens the passenger door.**

 **"Sure, get in." The woman, who is barefoot, climbs in and closes the door. "So, where do you live?"**

 **"At the end of Breckenridge Road." Troy nods.**

 **"You coming from a Halloween party or something?" The woman's dress is very low-cut. Troy notices, stares, then looks away, laughing nervously. "You know, a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here." She looks at him mournfully, seductively, and pulls her skirt up over her thigh.**

 **"I'm with you." She replies innocently. Troy looks away. The woman takes Troy's chin and turns his face towards her. "Do you think I'm pretty?" Troy nods, eyes stuck on her cleavage.**

 **"Uh...huh."**

"He is _so_ about to die." Sam says.

 **"Will you come home with me?" The woman asks.**

 **"Um. Hell yeah." Troy drives off.**

 **They pull up to an old abandoned house at the end of a road. The woman stares at it sadly.**

 **"Come on. You don't live here."**

 **"I can never go home." The woman looks at the house mournfully.**

 **"What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here. Where do you live?" He turns, and she's gone. He checks the back seat, also empty, and gets out of the car, nervous. "That's good. Joke's over, okay? You want me to leave?" Troy looks around: no signs of the woman. He walks towards the house. "Hello? Hello?" There's a picture of the woman and two children inside the house; the picture is covered in dust.**

 **Troy peers through the hole in the screen door. A bird flies at his face, scaring him into falling over. He yells, leaps to his feet, and runs back to the car. He gets in and drives off.**

 **Troy looks behind him—no one's there—then in the rearview mirror. The woman is in the back seat. Troy yells again and drives straight through a "Bridge Closed" sign, stopping about halfway across the bridge. He screams. Blood spatters the windows.**

"Called it." Sam says smugly. "What so you think she is? Not a vengeful spirit." He then asks.

"You know, I have a feeling she may be a woman in white." Bobby looks at the screen thoughtfully.

"Them sly dogs." Dean laughs out.

 **A gas station**

 **The next day**

 **1 Nov 2005.**

 **The Impala is parked in front of a pump. "Ramblin' Man" by the Allman Brothers plays.**

"Seriously, what's with all this music?" Dean asks, he's beginning to get annoyed by it.

"It's a TV show, right? Shows have annoying background music." John points out.

 **Dean comes out of the convenience mart carrying junk food. Sam is sitting in the shotgun seat with the door open, rifling through a box of tapes.**

 **"Hey!" Dean says, Sam leans out and looks at him. "You want breakfast?"**

 **"No, thanks. So how'd you pay for that stuff?" After a pause "You and Dad still running credit card scams?"**

 **"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career." Dean counters as he puts the nozzle back on the pump. "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."**

 **"Yeah? And what names did you write on the application this time?" Sam swings his legs back inside the car and closes the door.**

 **"Uh, Burt Aframian." Dean gets into the driver seat and puts his soda and chips down. "And his son Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal." He closes the door.**

 **"That sounds about right. I swear, man, you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." There are at least a dozen cassettes in the box on Sam's lap; some have album art, others are hand-labeled.**

 **"Why?" Dean asks, confused.**

 **"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two, Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica?" Sam holds up a tape for every band he names. Dean takes the box labeled Metallica from his brother. "It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."**

"Sam! You can't ho dissing the classics!" Dean all but whines, in a dramatic fashion. Sam just shrugs his shoulders.

 **"Well, house rules, Sammy." Dean pops the tape in the player. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole." Dean drops the Metallica box back in the box of tapes and starts the engine.**

 **"You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old." AC/DC's "Back in Black" begins to play. "It's Sam, okay?"**

 **"Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud." Dean drives off.**

 **The scene changes to them driving down centennial highway a little later in the day. They drive past a sign that says "JERICHO 7".**

 **Sam is talking on his cell phone.**

 **"Thank you." He closes his phone. "All right. So, there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess." Dean glances over at Sam, then back at the road. There is a bridge ahead of them, there are two police cars and several officers.**

 **"Check it out." Sam leans forward for a closer look.**

 **Dean pulls over. They take a long look before Dean turns off the engine.**

 **Kid Gloves Music's "My Cheatin' Ways" begins to play. Dean opens the glove compartment and pulls out a box full of ID cards with his and John's faces: visible ones include FBI and DEA. He picks one out and grins at Sam, who stares.**

 **"Let's go." Dean gets out of the car.**

 **On the bridge, the lead deputy, deputy Jaffe, leans over the railing to yell down to two men in wetsuits who were poking around the river.**

 **"You guys find anything?" He asks the men.**

 **"No! Nothing!" One replies.**

 **Jaffe turns back to the car in the middle of the bridge. It's familiar: it's Troy's, but the blood is gone. Another deputy, deputy Hein, is at the driver's side looking around inside the car.**

 **"No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless. It's almost too clean." The second deputy states.**

 **Dean and Sam walk into the crime scene like they belong there, the two deputies have yet to notice the brothers.**

 **"So, this kid Troy. He's dating your daughter, isn't he?" Deputy Jaffe asks his coworker.**

 **"Yeah."**

 **"How's Amy doing?"**

 **"She's putting up missing posters downtown."**

 **"You fellas had another one like this just last month, didn't you?" Dean interrupts their conversation. Jaffe looks up when Dean starts talking and straightens up to talk to him.**

 **"And who are you?" Jaffe asks, looking the man over. Dean flashes his badge.**

 **"Federal marshals."**

 **"You two are a little young for marshals, aren't you?" Is deputy Jaffe's reply. Dean laughs.**

 **"Thanks, that's awfully kind of you."**

"Dean, that's not going to work, you're going to get caught." John notes, everyone is getting good at this anticipation thing.

 **Dean goes over to the car.**

 **"You did have another one just like this, correct?" Dean asks.**

 **"Yeah, that's right. About a mile up the road. There've been others before that." Jaffe goes along with the conversation.**

 **"So, this victim, you knew him?" Sam asks, walking forwards. Jaffe nods.**

 **"Town like this, everybody knows everybody." Dean circles the car, looking around.**

 **"Any connection between the victims, besides that they're all men?" The older Winchester asks having made no connection himself yet.**

 **"No. Not so far as we can tell."**

 **"So what's the theory?" Sam asks deputy Jaffe. Sam goes over to Dean.**

 **"Honestly, we don't know. Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"**

 **"Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys." Sam stomps on Dean's foot because of the comment he's just made.**

 **"Thank you for your time." Sam says as he starts to walk away. Dean follows. "Gentlemen." Jaffe watches them go. Dean smacks Sam on the head.**

 **"Ow! What was that for?"**

 **"Why'd you have to step on my foot?"**

 **"Why do you have to talk to the police like that?" Sam counters his brother's question with one of his own.**

 **Dean looks at Sam and moves in front of him, forcing Sam to stop walking.**

 **"Come on. They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're going to find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves." Sam clears his throat and looks over Dean's shoulder. Dean turns. It's sheriff Pierce and two FBI agents.**

 **"Can I help you boys?" The sheriff asks.**

 **"No, sir, we were just leaving." Dean replies. As the FBI agents walk past Dean, he nods at each of them. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully." Dean and Sam head past the sheriff, who turns to watch them go.**

 **Scene changes to a street in the town. The marquee on the Highland Movie Theater reads:**

 _ **EMERGENCY TOWN HALL MEETING**_

 _ **SUNDAY 8 PM**_

 _ **BE SAFE OUT THERE**_

 **A young woman is sticking up posters with Troy's face and the caption "MISSING TROY SQUIRE". Dean and Sam approach.**

 **"I'll bet you that's her." Dean tells his brother.**

 **"Yeah." He agrees. Dean and Sam walk up to the young woman.**

 **"You must be Amy."**

 **"Yeah." Amy looks up at the two men.**

 **"Yeah, Troy told us about you. We're his uncles. I'm Dean, this is Sammy."**

 **"He never mentioned you to me." Amy walks away. Dean and Sam walk with her.**

 **"Well, that's Troy, I guess. We're not around much, we're up in Modesto."**

"Uncles, not bad, could do better though boys." Bobby offers his opinion. He's not sure what the purpose of watching this film is, all he's learnt so far is Sam is going to go off to Stanford and there will be a case in Jericho come the year 2005. It's too entertainment though once you get past the weirdness of it all.

 **"So, we're looking for him too, and we're kinda asking around." Sam says. Another young woman, Rachel, comes up to Amy and puts a hand on her arm.**

 **"Hey, are you okay?" Rachel asks her friend.**

 **"Yeah."**

 **"You mind if we ask you a couple questions?" Sam asks the two women.**

 **Another poster that says MISSING TROY SQUIRE flaps in the breeze.**

 **The four of them are sitting in a diner booth, Dean and Sam opposite Amy and Rachel.**

 **"I was on the phone with Troy. He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and...he never did." Amy is talking.**

 **"He didn't say anything strange, or out of the ordinary?" Amy shakes her head.**

 **"No. Nothing I can remember." Amy replies to Sam's question.**

 **"I like your necklace." He comments, changing the subject. Amy holds the pendant she's wearing, a pentagram in a circle, and looks down at it.**

 **"Troy gave it to me. Mostly to scare my parents—" Amy laughs. "—with all that devil stuff." Sam laughs a little and looks down, then up. Dean looks over.**

 **"Actually, it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil. Really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing."**

"And the nerd reveals himself!"

 **"Okay. Thank you, Unsolved Mysteries." Dean takes his arm off the back of Sam's seat and leans forward. "Here's the deal, ladies. The way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Amy and Rachel look at each other. "What is it?" Noticing the shared look.**

 **"Well, it's just... I mean, with all these guys going missing, people talk." Rachel starts.**

 **"What do they talk about?" Dean and Sam speak in chorus.**

"That's kind of weird." Both Sam and Dean say in unison, making them shoot wary glances at one another.

 **"It's kind of this local legend. This one girl? She got murdered out on Centennial, like decades ago." Dean looks at Sam, who listens to Rachel, nodding. "Well, supposedly she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up? Well, they disappear forever." Sam and Dean look at each other.**

 **Dean and Sam are in the local library. A web browser is open to the archive search page for the Jericho Herald. The words "Female Murder Hitchhiking" are typed into the search box. DEAN clicks GO; the screen tells him there are "(0) Result". DEAN replaces "Hitchhiking" with "Centennial Highway" with the same response. Sam is sitting next to him, watching.**

 **'Let me try." Dean smacks Sam's hand away.**

 **"I got it." Dean tells his brother. Sam shoves Dean's chair out of the way and takes over. "Dude!"**

"Some things never change, you're such a control freak Sammy." His words are harsh but Dean's tone of voice is joking.

 **Dean hits Sam in the shoulder.**

 **"You're such a control freak."**

 **"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?"**

 **"Yeah." Dean confirms.**

 **"Well, maybe it's not murder." Sam doesn't finish his sentence.**

 **Sam replaces "Murder" with "Suicide" and finds an article entitled "Suicide on Centennial". Dean glances at Sam. Sam opens the article, dated April 25, 1981. The camera focuses on the article.**

Sam shoots the nineteen year old a smug look. Dean just stick his tongue out briefly in reply.

Bobby smiles at the brotherly actions, they joke around less and less these days.

 **"This was 1981. Constance Welch, twenty-four years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river." Sam starts telling Dean. There's a picture of Constance.**

"That's the woman who killed that Troy guy, right?" Dean asks, Sam nods in confirmation. John, who's briefly glanced over the article as it was there silently agrees with Bobby, it's most likely a woman in white.

John doesn't understand where he is through all of this, would a spirit be enough to get him out of the picture? Yes he may have cheated, _once_ , but he hardly thinks that'll apply in seven years.

 **"Does it say why she did it?"**

 **"Yeah." Sam tells his brother.**

 **"What?"**

 **"An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Apparently her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die." Dean raises his eyebrows.**

 **"Hm." The article has a picture of Joseph next to a picture of Sylvania Bridge; it's the place Troy died.**

 **""Our babies were gone, and Constance just couldn't bear it," said husband Joseph Welch." Sam reads off the article.**

 **"The bridge look familiar to you?" Dean points out.**

 **Dean and Sam walk along Sylvania bridge, then stop to lean on the railing and look down at the river. It is sometime during the night now.**

 **"So this is where Constance took the swan dive."**

 **"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam looks over at Dean for an answer.**

 **"Well, he's chasing the same story and we're chasing him."**

"This is going to turn into one big game of cat and mouse boys." Bobby says out loud sensing John hasn't just disappeared accidentally. The only question left now is why would John desert his boys?

 **Dean continues walking. Sam follows.**

 **"Okay, so now what?" Sam look to Dean for guidance, something he's always done.**

 **"Now we keep digging until we find him. Might take a while." Sam stops.**

 **"Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—" Dean turns around and interrupts.**

 **"Monday. Right. The interview."**

 **"Yeah."**

 **"Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" Dean asks in a way that makes it obvious the Winchester doesn't think his brother can do it.**

 **"Maybe. Why not?"**

 **"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?" Sam steps closer.**

 **"No, and she's not ever going to know."**

"Well that makes fora healthy relationship." Dean comments hough he does understand why anyone would keep that secret.

 **"Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are." Dean turns around and keeps walking. Sam follows.**

 **"And who's that?" Sam snaps back.**

 **"You're one of us." Sam hurries to get in front of Dean.**

 **"No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."**

"Sam, who you trying to convince. Dean or yourself?" John asks the screen, for once not directing his anger towards the fourteen year old.

 **"You have a responsibility to—" This time Sam is the one who interrupts.**

 **"To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back."**

"That's a low blow Sam." Bobby says as Dean and John both shoot the teenage their killer glares. Sam doesn't think he would ever say that, even if it is true.

Deep down they all sympathise over the fact that Sam doesn't know his mother, doesn't even have a memory of her to call his own.

 **Dean grabs Sam by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.**

 **"Don't talk about her like that." Dean releases Sam and walks away. He sees Constance standing at the edge of the bridge.**

 **"Sam." Sam comes to stand next to Dean. Constance looks over at them, then steps forward off the edge. Sam and Dean run to the railing and look over but there's nobody in sight.**

 **"Where'd she go?" Dean asks, confused.**

 **"I don't know."**

 **Behind them, the Impala's engine starts and its headlights come on. Dean and Sam turn to look, still confused.**

 **"What the—"**

 **"Who's driving your car?"**

 **Dean pulls the keys out of his pocket and jingles them. Sam glances at them. The car jerks into motion, heading straight for them. They turn and run.**

"Well I've never seen that before." Bobby says, watching the screen.

"That bitch possessed baby." Dean says angrily to himself, that is not acceptable.

 **"Dean? Go! Go!" The car is moving faster than they are; when it gets too close, Sam and Dean dive over the railing. The car comes to a halt.**

 **Sam has caught himself on the edge of the bridge and is hanging on. He pulls himself up onto the bridge and looks around.**

 **"Dean? Dean!" Sam calls out, worried. Below, a filthy and annoyed Dean crawls out of the water and onto the mud, panting.**

 **"What?" He asks from the riverbed.**

 **"Hey! Are you all right?" Dean holds up one hand in an A-OK sign.**

 **"I'm super." Sam laughs, relieved, and scoots away from the edge.**

 **Timeskip. Dean shuts the hood of his car and leans on it.**

 **"Your car all right?"**

 **"Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now. That Constance chick, what a bitch!"**

 **"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" Sam settles on the hood next to Dean. He throws up his arms in frustration, then flicks mud off his hands. Sam sniffs, then looks at Dean.**

"Dude, you look disgusting." Sam says, shrivelling up his nose at the sight of his brother covered in mud.

 **"You smell like a toilet."**

Everyone except Dean laughs at the comparison, Dean looks fairly embarrassed.

 **Dean looks down.**

 **Motel lobby,**

 **The next day**

 **2 Nov 2005.**

 **A VersaBank MasterCard in the name of Hector Aframian lands on a handwritten guest ledger.**

 **"One room, please." Sea requests. He is standing at the motel check-in desk, still filthy, with Sam right behind him. The clerk picks up the card and looks at it.**

 **"You guys having a reunion or something?"**

 **"What do you mean?" Sam asks the clerk.**

 **"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." Dean looks pointedly back at Sam.**

 **The motel door swings open to reveal John's room. Sam is on the other side, having just picked the lock. Sam hides the picks and stands up. Dean is just outside, playing lookout, until Sam reaches out of the room to grab his shoulder and yank him inside. Sam closes the door behind them. They look around—every vertical surface has papers pinned to it: maps, newspaper clippings, pictures, notes. There are books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed, including something with a hazardous-materials symbol.**

 **"Whoa."**

"I agree, dad if that isn't an obsessive OCD I don't know what is." Sam says, glad John isn't quite that bad yet. Dean laughs;

"You know you technically just agreed with yourself?" Sam doesn't comment.

 **Dean turns on a light by the bed and picks up a half-eaten burger sitting there. Sam steps over a line of salt on the floor. Dean sniffs the burger and recoils.**

 **"I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least." Dean comes to a conclusion. Sam fingers the salt on the floor and looks up.**

 **"Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in."**

"What kind of mess did you get yourself into John?" Even if he did leave intentionally he was still worried about something getting him.

"I would never just leave a hunt! Unless-" John tries to seven himself but shuts up when he realises there's only one reason he would just leave his sons and a hunt.

 **Dean looks at the papers covering one wall.**

 **"What have you got here?"**

 **"Centennial Highway victims." Dean says looking at a wall plastered with clippings of the missing people. Sam nods. The victims seen on the wall include Mark somebody, William Durrell, Scott Nifong who disappeared in 1987 at age 25, and somebody Parks. Mark, and Durrell. "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs—" Sam crosses the room. "—ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"**

 **While Dean talks, Sam looks at the papers taped to the other walls. There's something about the Bell Witch, two people being burned alive, a skeletal person blowing a horn at several scared people with the note "MORTIS DANSE", a column about "Devils + Demons", another about "Sirens, Witches, the possessed", a wooden pentacle, and a note that says "Woman in White" above a printout of the Jericho Herald article on Constance's suicide.**

 **Sam turns on another lamp.**

 **"Dad figured it out." Dean turns to look.**

 **"What do you mean?"**

 **"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."**

"Guys you two are going to have to gank the spirit then. Salt and burn should do it."

 **Dean looks at the photos of Constance's victims.**

 **"You sly dogs." Dea then turns back to Sam. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."**

 **"She might have another weakness." Sam replies.**

 **"Well, Dad would want to make sure."**

As always it seems to be about what John would do. Sam doesn't really care what his dad would do if he's honest, there's more than one way.

 **Dean crosses to Sam.**

 **"He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?"**

 **"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam taps the picture of Joseph Welch. The caption says he's thirty; the article dates to 1981, so he must be in his mid sixties. "If he's still alive." Sam goes to look at something else. Dean looks at the picture below the Herald article, of a woman in a white dress.**

 **"All right. Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up." Dean starts to walk away. Sam turns.**

 **"Hey, Dean?" Dean stops and turns back. "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry." Dean holds up a hand.**

"No chick flick moments Sammy. Ever." Dean tells his brother, he doesn't really do feelings.

"Wouldn't dream of it, jerk."

 **"No chick-flick moments." Sam laughs and nods.**

 **"All right. Jerk."**

 **"Bitch." Sam laughs again. Dean disappears, presumably into the bathroom. Sam notices something, his smile disappearing, and crosses over for a closer look. A rosary hangs in front of a large mirror, and stuck into the mirror frame is a photo of John sitting on the hood of the Impala, next to a boy in a baseball cap who is presumably Dean and with a younger boy, presumably Sam, on John's lap. Sam takes the photo off the mirror and holds it, smiling sadly.**

 **Timeskip to later in the day, still in the motel room. Sam paces, holding his phone, and sits down on the bed. A voicemail message is playing.**

 _ **"Hey, it's me, it's about ten-twenty Saturday night—"**_

 **Dean, clean again, comes out of the bathroom and grabs his jacket. He shrugs it on one shoulder as he crosses the room.**

 **"Hey, man. I'm starving, I'm gonna grab a little something to eat in that diner down the street. You want anything?"**

 **"No." Sam replies**

 **"Aframian's buying." Sam shakes his head.**

 **"Mm-mm." Sam turns down the offer.**

"Sam you _do_ need to eat y'know." Dean chastices in more of a fatherly manner than an brotherly one. Sam shrugs, maybe he isn't hungry.

 **Dean leaves the motel room. He gets the jacket the rest of the way on as he crosses the parking lot. He looks behind him and sees a police car, where the motel clerk is talking to deputy Jaffe and deputy Hein. The clerk points at Dean, who turns away and pulls out his cell phone.**

 **In the motel room Sam is sitting on the bed, still listening to the voicemail message.**

 _ **So come home soon, okay? I love you.**_

 **The phone beeps. Sam looks at it, presses a button, then puts it back to his ear.**

 **"What?" Sam asks.**

 **Outside, the deputies are approaching Dean.**

 **"Dude, five-oh, take off." Sam stands up.**

 **"What about you?"**

 **"Uh, they kinda spotted me. Go find Dad." Dean hangs up the phone as the deputies approach. He turns and grins at them. "Problem, officers?"**

 **"Where's your partner?" Deputy Jaffe asks Dean.**

 **"Partner? What, what partner?" Jaffe glances over his shoulder and motions for the other deputy to check the room. Hein heads over there. Dean fidgets.**

 **Sam sees Hein approaching and darts away from the window.**

 **"So. Fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?"**

 **"My boobs." Dean grins.**

 **Hein slams Dean over the hood of the cop car.**

 **"You have the right to remain silent—"**

"Dean I've taught you better than that." John looks disapprovingly in his eldest's direction. Whether he's talking about getting caught or talking back at officers Dean doesn't know, but it's probably the former.

 **The sheriff's office,**

 **The same day**

 **Sheriff Pierce enters the room, carrying a box. He sets the box on the table at which Dean sits and goes around the table to face Dean across it.**

 **"So you want to give us your real name?"**

 **"I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent." Dean says, a small smile on his face.**

 **"I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here." The sheriff says warningly.**

 **"We talkin', like, misdemeanor kind of trouble or, uh, squeal like a pig trouble?"**

 **"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall." Dean looks away. "Along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo-jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect."**

 **"That makes sense. Because when the first one went missing in '82 I was three."**

"He's got a point." Bobby says supporting future Dean.

 **"I know you've got partners. One of 'em's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing. So tell me. Dean." The sheriff tosses a brown leather-covered journal on the table. "This his?"**

"My journal." John furrows his brows, he's becoming more and more certain he knows the reason he has disappeared.

 **Dean stares at it. The sheriff sits on the edge of the table. He flips through the journal: it's filled with newspaper clippings, notes, and pictures, just like what's on the walls of John's motel room.**

 **"I thought that might be your name. See, I leafed through this. What little I could make out—I mean, it's nine kinds of crazy." Dean leans forward for a closer look. "But I found this, too." He opens the journal to a page that reads "DEAN 35-111", circled, with nothing else on that page.**

"Coordinates." Dean mutters aloud, recognising his dad's handwriting and notes. All four wonder where the coordinates lead to, why have they been left in the journal?

 **"Now. You're stayin' right here till you tell me exactly what the hell that means." Dean stares down at the page, then looks up.**

 **Meanwhile Sam, seen through the chain-link covering a grimy glass window of the Welch house, knocks on the door the window is in. An old man opens it: it's recognizably Joseph Welch.**

 **"Hi. Are you Joseph Welch?"**

 **"Yeah." Joseph replies.**

 **Sam and Joseph are walking down the junk-filled driveway, Joseph holding the photo Sam found on John's motel room mirror.**

 **"Yeah, he was older, but that's him." Joseph hands the photo back to Sam.**

 **"He came by three or four days ago. Said he was a reporter."**

 **"That's right. We're working on a story together." Sam says going along with his father's cover story.**

 **"Well, I don't know what the hell kinda story you're working on. The questions he asked me?"**

 **"About your wife Constance?" Sam asks.**

 **"He asked me where she was buried."**

"Way to be subtle John."

 **"And where is that again?" Sam asks.**

 **"What, I gotta go through this twice?" The man asks.**

 **"It's fact-checking. If you don't mind."**

 **"In a plot. Behind my old place over on Breckenridge."**

 **"And why did you move?"**

"The man's hardly going to live in the house where his children died is he." Bobby tells the teenager, who thinks future him is asking stupid questions.

 **"I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died." Sam stops walking. Joseph stops too.**

 **"Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"**

"Bit of a random question Sammy." Dean says aloud.

 **"No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known."**

 **"So you had a happy marriage?" Joseph hesitates before replying.**

 **"Definitely." Sam has picked up on the hesitation.**

 **"Well, that should do it. Thanks for your time." Sam turns toward the Impala. Joseph walks away. Sam waits a moment, then looks back up at Joseph. "Mr. Welch, did you ever hear of a woman in white?"**

"Sammy what you doing blabbing to the civilians for?" John asks rhetorically.

"I wouldn't know, it hasn't happened yet." Sam replies through gritted teeth because _of course_ everything he does needs to be run through a fine tooth comb.

 **Joseph turns around.**

 **"A what?"**

 **"A woman in white. Or sometimes weeping woman?" Joseph just looks. "It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really." Sam starts back toward Joseph. "Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women." Sam stops in front of Joseph. "You understand. But all share the same story."**

 **"Boy, I don't care much for nonsense." Joseph walks away. Sam follows.**

 **"See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." Sam says and Joseph stops. "And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children." Joseph turns around. "Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again."**

 **"You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!" Joseph angrily stutters a reply.**

 **"You tell me."**

 **"I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!" Joseph's face shakes, whether from anger or grief it's impossible to tell. After a long moment, he turns away. Sam sighs.**

 **The sheriff's office,**

 **Sometime late in the evening**

 **"I don't know how many times I gotta tell you. It's my high school locker combo." Sheriff Pierce is still interrogating Dean over the "DEAN 35-111" page.**

 **"We gonna do this all night long?"**

 **A deputy leans into the room before speaking.**

 **"We just got a 911, shots fired over at Whiteford Road."**

 **"You have to go to the bathroom?"**

 **"No." Dean replies.**

 **"Good." The sheriff handcuffs Dean to the table and leaves. Dean sees a paper clip poking out of the journal, pulls it out, and looks at it. Moments later, as the sheriff and deputy are leaving, he is out of the cuffs. Dean watches through the window in the door, ducks out of sight as the deputy approaches the door, and waits.**

"I'm kind of worried about how quickly you get out of handcuffs Dean. Makes people think you're in them often." Sam says, not realising the innuendo he's unintentionally made.

Dean smirks but doesn't say anything.

 **Dean climbs down the fire escape, carrying John's journal.**

 **Scene xhanges to Sam is driving the Impala when his phone rings. He pulls it out and answers it. Dean is in a phone booth; apparently his phone was confiscated and he didn't take the time to steal it back.**

 **"Fake 911 phone call? Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."**

Sam looks at the screen disapprovingly.

 **"You're welcome." Sam grins.**

 **"Listen, we gotta talk."**

 **"Tell me about it. So the husband was unfaithful. We are dealing with a woman in white. And she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop." Sam says not giving his brother a chance to share his news.**

 **"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?"**

 **"I just can't figure out why Dad hasn't destroyed the corpse yet." Sam continues, oblivious to what Dean is trying to say.**

 **"Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's gone. Dad left Jericho." Dean says through the phone.**

 **"What? How do you know?"**

 **"I've got his journal."**

First he leaves his car, then he leaves his journal. Has John got anything left to leave behind?

 **"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing."**

 **"Yeah, well, he did this time."**

 **"What's it say?" Sam asks, interested.**

 **"Ah, the same old ex-Marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going."**

 **"Coordinates. Where to?" Sam guesses.**

 **"I'm not sure yet."**

 **"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?"**

The occupants in the room would like to know that too.

 **Sam looks up and slams the brake, dropping the phone: Constance appeared on the road in front of him. The car goes right through her as Sam brings it to a stop.**

 **"Sam? Sam!" Dean says through the phone which Sam has forgotten about.**

 **Inside the car, he breathes hard. Constance is now sitting in the back seat.**

 **"Take me home."**

"Don't you dare let that woman hitch hike with you Sam." John warns his boy.

 **"Take me home!" Constance says with more urgency this time when Sam doesn't reply.**

 **"No." Constance glares and the doors lock themselves. Sam tries and fails to reopen them. The gas pedal presses down and the car begins to drive itself. Sam tries to steer, but Constance is doing that too. Sam continues to try to get the door open.**

 **The car pulls up in front of Constance's house and stops. The engine shuts off and so do the lights.**

"Sammy you better have a plan, you don't even have salt... You're gonna die." Dean comes to a conclusion though of course he's exaggerating, a little.

 **"Don't do this." Sam tries to convince the woman.**

"Sam you can't negotiate with spirits." John states, because you can't.

 **Constance flickers. Her voice is sad when she speaks.**

 **"I can never go home."**

 **"You're scared to go home." The Winchester realises.**

 **Sam looks back and Constance isn't there. He glances around and back and sees her in the seat beside him. She climbs into his lap, shoving him back against the seat hard enough to recline the seat. Sam struggles.**

"Ugh, dude this is weird. I don't want to see some chick humping you." Dean says, disgusted.

"It's not my fault!" Sam protests.

 **"Hold me. I'm so cold." Constance says innocently/**

 **"You can't kill me. I'm not unfaithful. I've never been!"**

 **"You will be. Just hold me." Constance kisses Sam as he continues to struggle, reaching for the keys. She pulls back and disappears, a flash of something horrible behind her face as she vanishes. Sam looks around for a moment, then yells in pain and yanks his hoodie open. There are five new holes burned through the fabric, matching to Constance's fingers: she flickers in front of him, her hand reaching into his chest.**

"Is she trying to rip me heart out? Is shape allowed to do that, can she do that?" Sam asks nobody in particular, he is not happy about this.

 **A gunshot goes off, shattering the window and startling Constance. Dean approaches, still firing at her. She glares at him and vanishes, then reappears, and Dean keeps firing until she disappears again. Sam manages to sit up and start the car.**

 **"I'm taking you home." Sam says determinedly. He drives forward. Dean stares after the car. Sam smashes through the side of the house. Dean hurries through the wreckage to the passenger side of the car.**

"The car!" Dean cries out at the screen.

 **"Sam! Sam! You okay?"**

"Never mind about Sammy! Is baby okay!" Dean is leaning forwards in his seat.

 **"I think..."**

 **"Can you move?" Dean asks.**

 **"Yeah. Help me?" Dean leans through the window to give Sam a hand.**

 **Constance picks up a large framed photograph with three people: a woman who we now know to be Constance and two children who are presumably hers.**

 **Dean helps Sam out of the car.**

 **"There you go." Dean says.**

 **Dean closes the car door. They look around and see Constance; she looks up. She glares at them and throws the picture down. A chest of drawers scoots towards Sam and Dean, pinning them against the car. The lights flicker; Constance looks around, face scared. Water begins to pour down the staircase. She goes over. At the top are the boy and girl from the photograph. They hold hands and speak in chorus.**

 **"You've come home to us, Mommy."**

 **Constance looks at them, distraught. Suddenly they are behind her; they hug her tightly and she screams, her image flickering. In a surge of energy, Constance and the two children melt into a puddle in the floor. Sam and Dean shove the item of furniture away and go look at the spot where Constance and her children vanished.**

"I see why she didn't go back, those are some _scary_ kids." Dean mutters.

 **"So this is where she drowned her kids." Dean says aloud. Sam nods.**

 **"That's why she could never go home. She was too scared to face them."**

 **"You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy." He slaps Sam on the chest where he's been injured and walks away. Sam laughs through the pain.**

 **"Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"**

 **"Hey. Saved your ass." Dean protests, laughing.**

 **"Highway to Hell" by AC/DC begins to play.**

 **Dean leans over to look at the car.**

 **"I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car?" Dean twists around to look at Sam. "I'll kill you." Sam laughs.**

 **The scene changes to the Impala tearing down the highway, sometime that night. Only the left front headlight is on.**

 **SAM has the journal open to "DEAN 35-111" and a map open on his lap and is finding coordinates with a ruler, a flashlight tucked between chin and shoulder.**

 **"Okay, here's where Dad went. It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."**

"Isn't that just wilderness?" John asks, and Bobby nods. Neither have a clue why the coordinates would send them there.

 **Dean nods.**

 **"Sounds charming. How far?"**

 **"About six hundred miles."**

 **"Hey, if we shag ass we could make it by morning." Sam looks at him, hesitating.**

 **"Dean, I, um..." Dean glances at the road and back.**

 **"You're not going." Dean finishes Sam's sentence, dejectedly.**

 **"The interview's in like, ten hours. I gotta be there." Dean nods, disappointed, and returns his attention to the road.**

 **"Yeah. Yeah, whatever." Dean glances at Sam.**

 **"I'll take you home." Sam turns the flashlight off. They drive on.**

"Sam, can't you see your brother's upset?" John says, shaking his head. It's cruel watching the scene from this angle. Sam winces but he doesn't say anything.

 **Sam's apartment,**

 **Some point in the middle of the night**

 **They pull up in front of the apartment, Dean still frowning. Sam gets out and leans over to look through the window.**

 **"Call me if you find him?"**

"Well at least you're worried." John says quietly, glad to see Sam cares at least somewhat.

 **Dean nods.**

 **"And maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"**

 **"Yeah, all right." Dean agrees though you can see he doesn't think they will. Sam pats the car door twice and turns away. Dean leans toward the passenger door, one arm going over the back of the seat. "Sam?" Sam turns back to face his brother. "You know, we made a hell of a team back there."**

 **"Yeah." Dean drives off. Sam watches him go and sighs.**

 **Sam lets himself in. Everything is dark and quiet.**

 **"Jess?" Sam closes the door. "You home?" Sam notices a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table, with a note that reads "Missed you! Love you!", next to a National Geographic.**

"Your girl makes you cookies too? She's a keeper Sam. Marry her, and see if she has any friends." Dean flashes his brother a toothy smile.

 **Sam picks one up and eats it as he walks into the bedroom, smiling. The shower is running in the end suite. Sam sits on the bed, shuts his eyes, and flops onto his back.**

 **Blood drips onto Sam's forehead.**

"Uh oh Sammy." Dean says, he says it lightheartedly but he has a feeling something really bad is about to happen.

 **One drop, then another; he flinches and opens his eyes. He gasps in horror: Jess is pinned to the ceiling, staring down at him and bleeding from the belly.**

"Oh, son." John all but sighs in sadness, he never wants his youngest to go through what he experienced.

 **"No!" Jess bursts into flame; the fire spreads across the ceiling. Dean kicks the front door open.**

 **"Sam!"**

"Didn't you just drive away?" Sam asks confused but his older brother, like the two men, is two busy staring at the screen. He's never seen the actual fire before, holy hell it's scary.

 **Sam raises one arm to shield his face.**

 **"Jess!" Dean comes running into the bedroom.**

 **"Sam! Sam!" Dean looks up and sees Jess.**

 **"No! No!" Sam shouts, distraught. Dean grabs Sam off the bed and shoves him out the door, Sam struggling all the way.**

 **"Jess! Jess! No!" Flames engulf the apartment.**

 **A fire truck is parked outside the building, firemen and police keeping back gawkers. It's all very much like the tragedy in Kansas twenty-two year ago.**

 **Dean looks on, then turns and walks back to his car. Sam is standing behind the open trunk, loading a shotgun. Dean looks at the trunk, then at Sam, whose face is set in a mask of desperate anger. Sam looks up, then sighs, nods, and tosses the shotgun into the trunk.**

 **"We got work to do." Sam shuts the trunk.**

"Well, um... Why don't you put on the next episode?" Dean says as eloquently as ever. Bobby gets up and changes the DVDs.

"Season one, episode fourteen; nightmare." Bobby shrugs and presses play.


End file.
